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Vacant
Vacant is the 77th chapter of Jun Mochizuki's Pandora Hearts. Synopsis After revealing herself as Alice the B-Rabbit, Jack is surprised to see Alice before him once again. Alice tells Jack that she could never forgive him for what he had done, ever, drawing Oz's scythe and explaining how she really wanted to dismember Jack where he stands, but admits that there was something more pressing to be taken care now. Alice called out for her sister. The Intention of the Abyss extends her arms and tells Alice that in the end she couldn't accomplish it, but with this she would be able to prevent herself from being able to hurt anyone anymore. Alice goes in to destroy the Intention's memories, when suddenly a bright light erupts from the Intention's chest, the Core of the Abyss revealing its true form while speaking through the Intention. The Core tells Alice not to harm the Intention, sending bolts of crackling Abyssal energy shooting off of itself in various directions. Alice is shocked, as is Jack, by the actions of the Core of the Abyss. Suddenly she remembers how her sister had told her that if she was to try and hurt herself, the Core would intervene and prevent such a thing from coming to pass. Alice tightens her grip on Oz's scythe, telling the Core that she wasn't going to hurt her sister, she was only going to destroy her memories. The Core tells Alice that it wouldn't allow that to happen. Alice screams at the Core and tells it to stop being so unreasonable (calling it a blockhead) before going in to attack the Intention's memories once again. Jack tries to tell Alice to stop, but too late as Alice is stopped dead in her tracks. Energy from the Core instantaneously radiates and explodes throughout the tower, throwing Alice, Jack and the Intention back before Alice could manage to destroy the Intention's memories. Vincent enters Alice's room, asking for Jack, following the explosion. Alice's tower, showing severe signs of the fight, is crumbling apart as time progresses. Vincent asks about the explosion of light before seeing that Jack is covered in blood, with black cloud-like energy seemingly seeping off of Jack's body. Vincent asks if Oswald was the one that drew so much blood on Jack. Vincent starts to explain how he'd seen Oswald dead on the way there, before losing his train of thought when he realizes that Alice is dead. Vincent feverishly asks Jack if Alice was going to be all right, and when Jack doesn't immediately respond, he tells himself that she must be fine, because Jack was there. Vincent begs Jack to answer him, but Jack only vacantly slumps to the floor, and stares absently, breathing heavily in shock. Within their junction in the present, the Intention grabs Alice's hand, as she had fallen to the ground upon re-obtaining her memories. The Intention asks if Alice really remembered everything now, and Alice simply cries. This prompts the Intention to ask if it hurt to regain her memories, but Alice shook her head rather than saying anything. The Intention proceeds to explain how she didn't understand it all because inside her head, everything was a mess. She had asked B-Rabbit to destroy her memories, but because the Core of the Abyss had intervened, the memories were only torn to shreds. The Intention's incomplete memories of Jack only made her more confused, and so she explains that up until Alice lost her own memories, she was stuck in an awful situation. The Intention tells Alice that she likely lost her memories too because of their special connection, she then takes the time to apologize to Alice for forcing her to lose her memories as well. Alice states that when she first woke up, all she could see was the pitch-black watery surface of the Abyss, and all that was left behind within her was the name 'Alice' and the mistaken identity of B-Rabbit. That was all that she was able to embrace at the time, and so she had just always been Alice. After a brief pause in their conversation, the Intention says that she thought that the Core of the Abyss was trying to protect Alice because both of them were there. She goes on to say that if Alice had continued to use B-Rabbit's powers, her soul, which had done nothing more than steal all of Oz's power, would not have been able to handle the magnitude of B-Rabbit's power, and so it would have been destroyed. The Intention finally states that this was why the Core of the Abyss had... she teeters off subject, leaving Alice to finish the thought, remembering when she told Oz of her sealed powers when they had first met, and saying that the Core had sealed B-Rabbit's powers to keep Alice safe. Alice grabs her sister and asks what's happening to Oz right now if this was really what was going on. In the holding cells for Illegal Contractors within the basement of Pandora, Lottie and her Baskerville companion here approaching footsteps. Lottie asks who's there before seeing Echo and identifying her as Noise. Oz corrects Lottie and addresses Echo as 'Echo-chan', which makes Echo angrily yell to correct Oz by just calling her 'Echo', as she always does. Lottie asks what business Echo had there, causing Echo to swallow nervously. Echo suddenly pulls out her Jyanta doll, flashing it in Lottie's face and telling her in a threatening way that the doll was a limited edition version of Jyanta released on St. Bridget's Day this year in Reveil, finishing by saying that she was going to give Jyanta to Lottie. Echo requests that Lottie gives her a little time alone with Oz, and so Lottie realizes that Echo giving her Jyanta was a bribe of sorts. Lottie plays it up by saying that she wanted to get a little bit of fresh air anyway before she proceeds to exit the holding cell block of Pandora, with her Baskerville companion chasing after her in confusion, telling Lottie to wait while Lottie continues walking and whistling. Echo asks if Oz is okay when the two of them are alone, this confuses Oz, but Echo states that Oz isn't fine and that she knows that he isn't before he can say anything, apologizing for her outburst shortly afterward. Oz is silent, and Echo doesn't know what to say, so she begins to panic, which makes Oz question her actions even further. Echo thinks briefly and remembers something, and so she pulls out a book, her observation journal, and asks if Oz remembered what it was. Echo flips through her journal and inspects it content, before sliding to the ground in disappointment, saying that of all things, a punch line was missing. Oz starts laughing hysterically, which Echo questions because she could not understand his reasoning for it. This confuses Oz and Echo states that the fact that Oz understands that the punch line of the joke which she had replicated is an inversion of the concept in her opinion. Oz asks if in that little comedic story, Echo was talking about Gilbert, explaining that he had a memory of being told something similar by Oscar a long time ago. Oz then states that Echo really was like Gilbert, based on how she had forgotten the punch line. Oz thanks Echo, which prompts Echo to explain that shooting Oz was never Gilbert's real intention. She tells Oz that she had heard about how Gilbert was the servant of Glen Baskerville, and how he is bound to the existence called 'Glen' more closely than any of the other Baskervilles. Oz interrupts Echo by adding how Gilbert hates Jack, and so if Gilbert were to once again try to shoot at the image of Jack, there would be no helping it. Echo says that Oz is wrong and that he and Jack are two very different people, telling Oz that he should know that. Oz tells Echo that he and Jack are once in the same, because his body is really Jack's body, which had been rewound to a younger form by the power of the Abyss, while Oz's soul had only used it of it's own accord temporarily. Oz remembers Jack telling him that the body belonging to Oz Vessalius was a lie, and so Oz insists that such a thing must be true. Oscar and Ada now sit inside of the Vessalius family's mansion, where Oscar drops his tea-cup to the ground, covering his mouth in shock when Xai tells him of that Oz was a Chain and that his body belonged to Jack. Oscar refuses to believe such a thing and insists that Xai not say such foolish things, whilst Ada sits in shock, staring silently into the distance through empty eyes. Xai pauses briefly before going on to explain that it had been more than 25 years ago when a single young boy appeared before him, snow floating down around both of them. The boy had told Xai that he was a person who had slipped away from the providence of the Abyss, and finally Xai quotes the boy, "I have continued living for these past 100 years." This was the being who would come to be known as Oz Vessalius. Characters in order of appearance Terms Trivia *Alternate Title: -Hollow Soul- *This chapter reveals that the Core of the Abyss' intervention when Alice destroyed her sister's memories was what saved Alice from destroying herself in the process. *When Xai first met Oz, he appeared as an (approximately) eight-year old boy rather than a newborn child, and it appeared as though Jack still had control of the body at this point. Navigation Category:Manga